29th June: The Art of Change at TEDx EMSIC

Lately, I haven’t been that active and spent time mostly at home… until an invitation to an interesting event came up to me on Facebook!It is a TEDx conference taking place at ‘Ecole Marocaine des Sciences de l’Ingenieur’ organised by a dynamic group of students and collaborators.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It is a global set of conferences under the slogan “Ideas worth spreading”, indeed, it is a way to spread ideas to inspire people from all ages. TEDx are independent events under the TED franchise with some rules and conditions such as prohibiting third parties organisers to make profit. Today’s theme was “The Art of Change”. It has been approached well by various speakers who inspired more than a hundred in attendance…

A friend I know from CouchSurfing invited me to join this conference, she is also part of the organisation team. I received the invitation on Facebook few days earlier and without hesitation I hit the button “I’m going” on the event page. The event started a bit after 3pm, the opening was fresh and very inspiring with Nahed Rachad who is a coach well known for her tv appearances and conferences around the country. Her way of approaching the theme “The Art Of Change” was interesting in a way that a bit of us already changed straight after her speech. That was the first speaker and so far so good… my favourite from the whole event –till I left… a bit before the end…-.

The next person to hit the stage was Abdeljalil Bakkar and his history of creating the organisation ‘Initiative Urbaine’ and how it works. He is the president and the founder of this organisation with a strong aim to help young people in dodgy neighbourhoods of Casablanca such as Hay Mohammedi. This participation has been followed by Imad Belfaqir‘s. He has mainly spoken in a classical Arabic that sounded very poetic with some great quotations. Imad is an editor of the newspaper “Bidaoua“.

Following those presentations, a teacher Hicham Boutayba from the organising school “EMSI” approached the theme under another view… geopolitical which is his specialisation with law that he teaches to his students. He ended up his speech by a great advice to the audience –mainly students– to study well as it is a major way to achieve changes. In another field, Salah Eddine Bentalba who is an IT consultant and blogger well known over social medias amongst Moroccan followers showed us how important networking is in our daily lives and our professional careers. He highlighted the fact that starting a simple conversation with a stranger could open various doors to success alongside several opportunities and the creation of good contacts. I’ve applied this straight after his speech by speaking to him about my project that is this blog! He has then shared his impressions about the event:

“TEDx is an experience that everyone must try at least once and then it’ll become a habit! Just try it! TEDx EMSIC was simply amazing and well organised!”

He has also shared his thoughts about today’s theme and about getting involved in the TEDx conferences:

“I had the chance the first time to organise TEDx EMSI. After a year, I had once again the big chance to be one of the speakers of TEDx EMSIC. The talks were really good about the changes we can make by starting with ourselves and also by sharing and inspiring others.”

Bentalba and other speakers surely did inspire us today! Around 5pm, it was time for a break where drinks and some appetisers have been served. I left a short moment after that, unfortunately, missing the other interventions.

This was my afternoon at the TEDx EMSI conference in Casablanca. Next time, I’ll probably be posting from the other city that I recently started to call home too: London. Stay tuned, I’ll soon be coming to a city near you! 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Hello, I'm Omar. I travel the world one city at a time. To get travel adventures delivered straight to your inbox, join my newsletter.